Luverne council considers new equipment

Published 12:10 pm Thursday, September 27, 2012

Monday’s Luverne City Council meeting covered a number of issues ranging from the budget to city beautification and grants.

City engineer Morris Tate reported that the city’s wood chipper is still being repaired, but that it should be back in service soon.

Mayor Joe Rex Sport mentioned that the city has been trying to get a curbing machine to trim the grass on curbs, and that Tate had been looking into those.

Email newsletter signup

“The ones I’ve got sit on the back of a three-point hitch on the back of a tractor, and I’m not sure how that will work,” said Tate, who added that he had talked to the city maintenance department in Greenville and planned to talk to other cities.

“This would speed up street curbing,” said Sport. “When you put people out there with a weedeater, it takes a while.  If you’ve got a machine you can put one man on, you could cover a lot of ground and not put all your personnel on it.”

Sport said that the electric board has already voted to buy the curbing machine, and it wouldn’t require action by the city council.

Sport also said that a submitted water line grant was not approved by ADECA.

“We’re going to find out what we missed to be qualified and re-submit,” he said. “We’re going to re-write that and see if we can’t get six-inch lines all over town and get some streets repaved.”

Sport said the larger lines would not only give more water pressure, but it would also assist the fire department when they have to use fire hydrants.

The council also heard from Hilda Maddox, who is helping organize another Veterans’ Day program for this November.

Last year the event was held at the Veterans’ Park, but this year, the plan is to hold it at Turner Park.

“We’ve got the music situated, hopefully,” Maddox said. “We’ll have a speaker who will speak no longer than 10 minutes, and we’re going to suggest that the time of the event be 1:30 or 2 in the afternoon.”

She said that a reception will follow afterward at the Luverne Public Library.

In other business, no mention was made of a proposed increase in sales tax, and the council passed the FY 2013 budget.